A long-lost gospel that casts Judas as a co-conspirator of Jesus, rather than a betrayer, was ruled most likely authentic in 2006. Now, scientists reveal they couldn't have made the call without a series of far more mundane documents, including Ancient Egyptian marriage licenses and property contracts.
The Gospel of Judas is a fragmented Coptic (Egyptian)-language text that portrays Judas in a far more sympathetic light than did the gospels that made it into the Bible. In this version of the story, Judas turns Jesus over to the authorities for execution upon Jesus' request, as part of a plan to release his spirit from his body. In the accepted biblical version of the tale, Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
As part of a 2006 National Geographic Society (the Society) investigation of the document, microscopist Joseph Barabe of McCrone Associates in Illinois and a team of researchers analyzed the ink on the tattered gospel to find out if it was real or forged. Some of the chemicals in the ink raised red flags — until Barabe and his colleagues found, at the Louvre Museum, a study of Egyptian documents from the third century A.D., the same time period of the Gospal of Judas.
"What the French study told us is that ink technology was undergoing a transition," Barabe told LiveScience. The Gospel of Judas' odd ink suddenly fit into place. [Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus]CSI: Ancient Egypt
Barabe and his colleagues specialize in thorough investigations of old — or supposedly old — documents and artwork. The chemical composition of inks used can reveal the difference between something authentically ancient and a forgery. In 2009, Barabe helped expose a gospel called the "Archaic Mark," which some claimed was a 14th-cen

A long-lost gospel that casts Judas as a co-conspirator of Jesus, rather than a betrayer, was ruled most likely authentic in 2006. Now, scientists reveal they couldn't have made the call without a series of far more mundane documents, including Ancient Egyptian marriage licenses and property contracts.
The Gospel of Judas is a fragmented Coptic (Egyptian)-language text that portrays Judas in a far more sympathetic light than did the gospels that made it into the Bible. In this version of the story, Judas turns Jesus over to the authorities for execution upon Jesus' request, as part of a plan to release his spirit from his body. In the accepted biblical version of the tale, Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
As part of a 2006 National Geographic Society (the Society) investigation of the document, microscopist Joseph Barabe of McCrone Associates in Illinois and a team of researchers analyzed the ink on the tattered gospel to find out if it was real or forged. Some of the chemicals in the ink raised red flags — until Barabe and his colleagues found, at the Louvre Museum, a study of Egyptian documents from the third century A.D., the same time period of the Gospal of Judas.
"What the French study told us is that ink technology was undergoing a transition," Barabe told LiveScience. The Gospel of Judas' odd ink suddenly fit into place. [Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus]CSI: Ancient Egypt
Barabe and his colleagues specialize in thorough investigations of old — or supposedly old — documents and artwork. The chemical composition of inks used can reveal the difference between something authentically ancient and a forgery. In 2009, Barabe helped expose a gospel called the "Archaic Mark," which some claimed was a 14th-cen

....The discovery gave the researchers the confidence to declare the document consistent with a date of approximately A.D. 280. (Barabe and his colleagues caution that this finding doesn't prove beyond doubt that the document is authentic, but rather that there are no red flags proving it's a forgery.)...

....The discovery gave the researchers the confidence to declare the document consistent with a date of approximately A.D. 280. (Barabe and his colleagues caution that this finding doesn't prove beyond doubt that the document is authentic, but rather that there are no red flags proving it's a forgery.)...

The following chart provides the dates when the New Testament books were written. In the cases in which historians disagree on the date, we have identified the prominent historians who support the earliest and lastest possible dates.

The following chart provides the dates when the New Testament books were written. In the cases in which historians disagree on the date, we have identified the prominent historians who support the earliest and lastest possible dates.

Click to expand...

Very informative!

It only confirms my thoughts and research too, in that the books were written right around the time of Masada, and the problems that occurred around A.D. 70, with the Sanhedrin being outlawed, and the Roman government coming against the Pharsaic Jews and etc. The books written by actual witnesses of what happen during the time of the crucifixtion, obviously caused strife!--and this sparked others like Paul the apostle to put his scholarly experience to the pin! These books in this chart agree with the uproars of the times that included the problems that extended through the time of the set up of the 7 Churces in Asia Minor, and up through about A.D. 90, and would include the trouble with Bar Khokba, and the building of the Coliseum, and etc. Again this chart is a great source of information. Thanks!

Abstract
This study discusses Irenaeus of Lyon’s testimony of the famous Gospel of Judas, offering both a historical and, in particular, linguistic analysis and retranslation of Against Heresies 1.31.1. On the basis of a detailed philological commentary and textual analysis it is – contrary to most current opinions – concluded that Irenaeus, in all feasibility, had first-hand knowledge of the Gospel and its contents. In other words, Irenaeus appears to have read the text as we now have it (‘a composed work’) and he summarises it in his treatise. According to Irenaeus’s testimony, the Gospel was produced by a group of 2nd century Gnostics who positivelyvenerated Judas as a fellow Gnostic in the same way that they positively venerated Cain. It was because of his particular knowledge of the redeeming act of Sophia as well as the negative characteristics of the creator God in contrast to the superior God that Judas accomplished the ‘mystery of his (= Jesus’) betrayal’, so that ‘through him (= Judas) all things, both earthly and heavenly, have been dissolved.’

... ....Also found in this codex are several other Gnostic documents such as The Apocalypse of James, The Letter of Peter to Philip and what scholars are, for now, calling The Book of Allogenes, all written in Coptic, an ancient Egyptian language based on Greek that is still used among the Christians of the Coptic Orthodox Church, a persecuted minority in today's overwhelmingly Muslim Egypt.

On the basis of careful examination of the codex, scholars are in general agreement that the text of The Gospel of Judas released by the National Geographic Society may be dated to somewhere around the beginning of the fourth century, between 300 and 340AD, roughly the same time as the Roman emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, called the First Ecumenical Council and established the city of Constantinople and therefore some 300 years after the encounter of Jesus with Judas in Jerusalem during the third decade of the first century.

Basically, The Gospel of Judas is just another notoriously unhistorical Gnostic gospel like some of the texts that were found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt some sixty years ago.

Therefore, it must first be clearly stated that The Gospel of Judas is not a gospel written by Judas himself. In an Associated Press interview, one of the world's foremost experts on Coptic manuscripts and Gnosticism, Professor James M. Robinson, an emeritus professor at Claremont Graduate University, was asked whether or not this text goes "back to Judas" and his unequivocal answer was simply "No."...

..some participants in the National Geographic effort "are making the sly suggestion that the Gospel of Judas is more or less equally valid" with the Gospels of the New Testament and that it "contains things that could pull the rug out from Christianity as we know it." Robinson's blunt response to such a suggestion: "This is just ridiculous." In fact, Robinson speculated that the timing of the release of The Gospel of Judas was aimed at capitalizing on interest in the film version of The Da Vinci Code, due to be released on May 19th, a fictional story by novelist Dan Brown that centers on ancient Gnostic texts and a conspiracy by the Roman Catholic Church to cover up a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene....

.......Also found in this codex are several other Gnostic documents such as The Apocalypse of James, The Letter of Peter to Philip and what scholars are, for now, calling The Book of Allogenes, all written in Coptic, an ancient Egyptian language based on Greek that is still used among the Christians of the Coptic Orthodox Church, a persecuted minority in today's overwhelmingly Muslim Egypt.

On the basis of careful examination of the codex, scholars are in general agreement that the text of The Gospel of Judas released by the National Geographic Society may be dated to somewhere around the beginning of the fourth century, between 300 and 340AD, roughly the same time as the Roman emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, called the First Ecumenical Council and established the city of Constantinople and therefore some 300 years after the encounter of Jesus with Judas in Jerusalem during the third decade of the first century.

Basically, The Gospel of Judas is just another notoriously unhistorical Gnostic gospel like some of the texts that were found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt some sixty years ago.

Therefore, it must first be clearly stated that The Gospel of Judas is not a gospel written by Judas himself. In an Associated Press interview, one of the world's foremost experts on Coptic manuscripts and Gnosticism, Professor James M. Robinson, an emeritus professor at Claremont Graduate University, was asked whether or not this text goes "back to Judas" and his unequivocal answer was simply "No."...

..some participants in the National Geographic effort "are making the sly suggestion that the Gospel of Judas is more or less equally valid" with the Gospels of the New Testament and that it "contains things that could pull the rug out from Christianity as we know it." Robinson's blunt response to such a suggestion: "This is just ridiculous." In fact, Robinson speculated that the timing of the release of The Gospel of Judas was aimed at capitalizing on interest in the film version of The Da Vinci Code, due to be released on May 19th, a fictional story by novelist Dan Brown that centers on ancient Gnostic texts and a conspiracy by the Roman Catholic Church to cover up a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene....

So, they moved that date of this 'Gospen of Judas' maring a time even farther away from the Crucifixion and farther into the future to the time of Constantine. lol! That would also be a time when so many fake Christians were doing some 'fancy footwork 'or should I say 'fancy footnoting... lies'.